So i am baffled about this and thought i would post and see if any members have any ideas why this is happening...........My blue shrimp tank has been setup for alomst a year now and i cannot ever get the water crystal clear.......The water parameters are fine......0 ammonia......0 nitrites and my nitrates are never above 10......Its heavily planted with a single small sword, nanja grass, java fern and a small piece of malayasian driftwood.......I can (and have been doing 50% water changes ) every 3 days recently to try to get it to look better......The shrimp are thriving and breeding like rabbits and the only other tankmates are a few assassin snails to keep the inevitable pond snails in check......Recently i traded about a 100 of the shrimp to an importer/breeder for some angelfish she had, and i thought maybe their were too many shrimp in the 10 gallon tank, but since i traded them the water has not gotten any clearer, even with doing water changes every 3 days its always cloudy.........my only thought is the piece of driftwood.........I hate the thought of removing it, because all the shrimp like to hide under and behind it.......I came to the conclusion on the wood, because my yellow shrimp have the same exact envoroment, but their is no wood in that tank and the water is crystal clear...ALWAYS!!!............Anyone have any ideas why this is happening?.......and before anyone asks, the Ph is 7.2.......any suggestions are greatly appreciated

MoneyMitch

09-09-2009 05:19 PM

your probobly are right with your guess of your driftwood, did you boil lit before you got it to get absolutely everything out or did ya just soak it, thats my take on it hope this helps, money

Byron

09-09-2009 05:24 PM

If you have reason to think it might be the wood, I would remove it for a week minimum, do a pwc when you do, and see what happens. Put in something else for a hideout (another bit of wood, rock, clean flowerpot on its side...).

Keep the wood you take out in water, a spare tank or a pail, just so it doesn't dry out, in case it's OK and needs to go back. You may be right, wood can contain any number of substances, and it may take some time before they begin to leech out; I speak from terrible experience.

This other thought for what it's worth--Is the substrate the same as in another tank with no problem? My tank with the darker gravel I have always take longer to settle than the others, whether a new setup or a pwc.

Byron.

Fishin Pole

09-09-2009 06:35 PM

i will remove the wood and see what happens, but im gonna wait a few days to do it.....Just did a water change last night and my water change water isnt up to temp yet........The substrate is different than the yellow shrimp tank, but i also have the same substrate in my hex tank and havent had any changes in water quality and the piece of wood i have in their was bought at the same time and same type of wood..........I'll keep everyone posted

Fishin Pole

09-24-2009 01:36 PM

Just wanted to give everyone an update on my cloudy water............I removed the wood and put it into a much larger tank (55gallon)........The tank i took it from (10 Gal blue shrimp tank) didnt look any better, until i cleaned my sponge filter really well in old tank water........I left the wood out for about a week and the water cleared up nicely............Then i had a thought, that maybe my filter was that dirty, it wasnt cleaning the water well enough, so i put the wood back in and it began to cloud up again...........For whatever reason, after about 10 months this piece of wood was creating cloudy water for this tank...........Gonna boil it and see if that makes any difference in water quality........